The Brookhaven leader., 1887-11-17
THE DUTY OF PARENTS.
OR. TAiMAeE's DISCOURSE AT THE
TABERNACLE.

The Extre,res Of Discipline aud Leni.
eucy--; aiIdrcn as Often Ruined by In-
JulEence as by Tyranny-The Proper
Treatment of the Young.
BROOKLYN, Nov. 13.-The weekly pub
lcation of DR.. Talmage's sermons is be-
yond parallel. Beside the English speak.
ing nations, including Australia and New
Zealand, the sermons are regularly trans
lated into the languages of Germany,
France. Italy, Denmark, Norway, Rus
sa and India. The gentlemen having in
charge the publication of these sermons
inform us that in this country, every
week, 100000 copies of the entire
sermon are printed, and about 4,000,-
900 in other lands, making over H.
900 900 per week. A similar arrange
ment is now being made for the publica-
ton of DR.. Talmage's Friday evening
talks.
The subject of the sermon to-day was
Parental Blunders," and the text was
I Samuel iv, IS: HE fell from off the
seat backward by the side of the gate,
and his neck brake, and he died: for he
was an old man, and heavy" DIR. Tai
mage said:
This is the end of long story of pa
rental neglect. Judge Eli was a good
man, but he let his two boys, Hophni
and Phine,as do as they pleased, and
through over indulgence they went to
ruin. The blind old judge, 90 years of
age, il seated at the gate waiting for the
news of an important battle in which his
two sons were at the front. An express
is coming with tidings from the battle.
This blind nonogenarian puts his hand
behind his ear and listens and cries:
E'What meaneth the noise of this
tumult?" An excited messenger, all out
of breath with the speed, said to him:
Our army is defeated. The sacred
chest, called the ark, is captured, and
your sons are dead on the field" No
wonder the father tainted and expired.
The domestic tragedy in which these two
sons were the tragedians had finished its
fifth and last act. He fell from off the
seat backward by the side of the gate and
his neck brake. and he died; for he was
an old man and heavy"
Eli had made an awful mistake in re-
gard to Ills children. The Bible distinctly
says: His sons made themselves vile
and he restrained them not" Oh. the
ten thousand mistakes in rearing chill
drcn, mistakes of parents, mistakes of
teachers i'll day school and Sabbath
classes, mistakes which we all make.
Will it not be useful to consider them:
This country is going to be conquered
by great army, compared with which
that of Baldwin the First, and Xerxes,
aud Alexander, and Grant, and Lee, all
put together, were in numbers insignif-
cant. They will capture all our pulpits,
Storehouses, factories and halls Of legisla-
ton, all our shipping, all our wealth and
all our honors. They will take possession
Of all authority, from the United States
presidency down to the humblest con-
stabulary-of everything between the
Atlantic and Pacific oceans. They are
on the march now, and they halt neither
day nor night. They will soon be here
and all the present active population of
this country must surrender and give
way. refer to the great army of chill
dren. Whether they shall take possession
of everything for good or for bad depends
upon the style of preparation through
which they pass on their way from cradle
to throne. Cicero acknowledges he kept
iii his desk collection of prefaces for
hooks, which prefaces he could at any
time attach to anything he wanted to
publish for himself or others; and
parents and teachers have all prepared
the preface of every young life under
their charge, and not only the pre-
face, but the appendix, whether
the volume be poem or
farce. Families, and schools, and legis-
iatures are in our day busily engaged in
discussing what is the best mode of edu-
eating children. Before this question
almost every other dwindles into insig-
nlficance, while dependent upon its
proper solution is the welfare of govern
ments and ages eternal. Macaulay tells
of the war which Frederick the Second
made against Queen Maria Theresa. And
one day she appeared before the august
met, wearing mourning for her father,
and held up in her arms bafore them her
child, the archduke. This so wrought
upon the officers and deputies of the
people that with half drawn swords they
broke forth in the war cry, ''Let US die
for our queen, Maria Theresa!" So, this
morning, realizing that the boy of today
IS to be the ruler of the future, the popu-
lar sovereign, I hold him before the
American people to arouse their enthusi-
asm in his behalf and to evoke their oath
Tor his defense, his education and his
sublime destiny. '..t"
Ii parent, you will remember when
you were aroused to these great respon-
sioilities, and when you found that you
had not done all required after you had
admired the tiny hands, and the glossy
hair, and the bright eyes that lay in the
cradle, you suddenly remembered that
tnat hand would yet be raised to bless
the world with its benediction, or to
smite it with curse. In Ariosto's great
poem there is a character called Rug
glero, who has a shield of insufferable
spiendor, ut~it is kept veiled save on
certain occasions, and when uncovered it
startled and overwhelmed its beholder,
VINO before had no suspicion of its bright
ness. My hope today is to uncover the
destiny of your child or student, about
which You may have no special apprecia-
iion' and flash upon you the splendors of
It's immortal nature. Behold the shield
and the sword of its coming conflict!
propose in this discourse to set forth
what consider to be some of the errors
prevalent in the training of children. sd
First: / remark that many err in too
great severity or too great leniency of
family government. Between parental
tyranny and ruinous laxativeness Of dis
cipline there is medium. Sometimes
the father errs on one side, and the